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Absorbing Song Lyrics | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Music, Movies, TV & Radio |  | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5660 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes  Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 21 28 June 2011 at 8:48pm | IP Logged |
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We often have debates on here about whether or not passive listening is valuable.
Specifically, some learners believe it helps to have audio playing all day long, even if they are paying no attention to it. I have always been in the camp that says it has limited value, and that listening requires at least some active attention. However, I have begun to wonder whether or not this is a prejudice based on my own experience. The trigger for this was a recent chat with somebody who claims that she just "knows" all the lyrics to songs that play on the radio. After them being on in the background a few times, she finds herself singing along. Now, I never know the lyrics to songs - even after hearing them dozens of times - unless I have paid deliberate attention to them and put effort into learning them. Maybe there are people who just absorb songs without paying attention, and maybe those people can benefit from background audio when learning languages in a way that others (including me) do not. Is anybody here aware of research on this effortless absorption of song lyrics? I would be very interested in reading about it, to see if I can find any relevance to passive listening and language learning. Edited by Splog on 28 June 2011 at 8:49pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Lianne Senior Member Canada thetoweringpile.blog Joined 5106 days ago 284 posts - 410 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Esperanto, Toki Pona, German, French | Message 3 of 21 28 June 2011 at 9:35pm | IP Logged |
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I don't know of any research on the subject, but it's certainly an interesting theory, and one that I could make use of. I know the words to hundreds of songs, including ones I don't even like, just from hearing them on the radio, on commercials, at parties, etc. I've always memorised every song I like, probably due to my desire to sing along, but I never put effort into it. So maybe this is a technique I should be trying.
Actually, I even memorise the music I listen to that's in other languages. I just sing along to the sounds instead of actual words. Probably it would sound pretty silly to someone who actually understands the language I'm attempting to sing. :P 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5819 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 4 of 21 28 June 2011 at 11:16pm | IP Logged |
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The fact of the matter is that we rarely ever pay 0 attention to background noise. We tune it in and out to certain
degrees depending on what else is going on. I would hazard a guess that people who like music have a tendency to tune out music less than other background noise; I know that I personally pick up on the music I'm hearing very thoroughly even if my attention is mostly elsewhere. That's why I can pick up song lyrics easily from background listening. I think that those of us who are good at this do get a better benefit from background language exposure, but it's still not a huge benefit. You can up the benefit by playing the same audio on a constant loop though- you'll begin to memorize it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5757 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 21 29 June 2011 at 12:22am | IP Logged |
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... I can sing along to Finnish songs while reading in English. It does sound horrible, but that's because my voice can't carry a tune.
I'll try to see if I can find anything. What Luai_lashire wrote about having the same audio in a constant loop reminded me of something I read years ago; as far as I remember it was an experiment in which two groups of participants, one trained singers and one laymen, had to repeat (or read aloud) sentences they had just heard. At one time, they only heard the sentence once before repeating it, and at another time they heard the same recording ten times. The fascinating part was that when the participants had heard the sentence once, they repeated it in their own normal voice, but when they had heard it several times they matched the pitch and speed of the recording. Both groups did that, but the trained singers needed less repetition. I'll try to find the source again - it was pretty impressive, the website had actually overlayed the voices of each take to form a chorus. (As least I think I heard that, as well as I think I remember seeing some graphics with green and red and blue lines ...) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5819 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 6 of 21 29 June 2011 at 12:47am | IP Logged |
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That sounds really cool Bao, I hope you can find it again. :)
It reminded me of another important thing I forgot to mention. Part of what effects the amount of attention you can pay to background noise, is what kind of task you're doing simultaneously. The brain is not as good at handling, for example, two different language tasks at the same time as it is at handling a language task and a physical task like juggling or walking. So if you read something unrelated to the sounds you're hearing, you will be less able to pay attention, whereas if you do a maze, exercise, play a matching game like Memory, or eat, you will be able to pay more attention to the sound- even full attention if you so desire. ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JimC Senior Member United Kingdom tinyurl.com/aberdeen Joined 5538 days ago 199 posts - 317 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 21 29 June 2011 at 11:33am | IP Logged |
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This is the effect that the Earworms series relies on, that things will stick in your head without effort.
Jim 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Traven Newbie United States Joined 4894 days ago 6 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 8 of 21 01 July 2011 at 11:50pm | IP Logged |
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Even when we're consciously tuning out background noise, there's a portion of our brains busy processing the sounds around us, if only for signs of danger. We're never completely unaware of the world around us - barring headphones, but those headphones are probably busy with music in your target language anyway.
I don't know how much benefit can be gotten from constantly playing background music, and it's an interesting thought that some may benefit from this more than others. I have Japanese music (or podcasts or other forms of audio) playing the majority of the time, and several of the songs I've listened to I can now somewhat sing along with - even when I'm not paying complete attention. Whether this helps with actually learning the language or just that song I'm not sure, but I'd like to believe the former. It can't hurt either way, though, can it? It's actually giving me a bit of motivation and keeping my main goal constantly in mind - I want to be able to listen to these things and completely understand them some day. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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